WARNING!

Reading this blog has made people want to kill themselves, so if you are easily depressed, perhaps you should find something more uplifting to do, like watch a Holocaust documentary or read a Cormac McCarthy novel.

Sunday, March 07, 2010

mea culpa

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been two days since my last entry. I've been too busy and I humbly repent. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.

You would think if I've been too busy to blog I'd have plenty to write about. But busy-ness does not equal interesting. But we'll give it my best shot.

2nd trimester is nearly over - teacher work day tomorrow than a whole new batch of students on Tuesday. I get four days with them before the week-long extravaganza that is the Ohio Graduation Test. Joy. So I'll only see them every other day and they'll be OGT zombies so the odds of learning anything are slim to none. Then I get a full week with them and then the week before spring break we have our rescheduled black history month speaker on Monday, altered schedule Tuesday, primetime Wednesday and pep assembly on Thursday with Good Friday starting our spring break. So yeah, planning should be interesting. I have some of it ready - in fact, I'm much farther along than I normally am at this point. Had almost all my exams graded before lunch on Friday - only a handful of IEP tests that haven't been returned by their support educators to mark up on Monday. Don't think I'll have any students scrambling on Monday to turn in late work - as usual, most students grades didn't change with the final, either up or down.

Lots of endings this week - end of the trimester, end of Beyond Therapy, end of my facial hair (sorry, I couldn't keep the porn 'stache any longer). But some beginnings too - heading down to Newport this afternoon for my first meet and greet with the cast from The Wedding Singer. I'm excited and a bit nervous - pretty sure I'm the oldest person in the cast. Probably only one who was actually alive during the 80s. This is the first musical I've ever done where I know nothing about the show going in - everything else I've at least had a vague idea. Not this time. Should make life interesting. At the very least today, I'll find out how much of my schedule is swallowed up by rehearsals. Hopefully not too much or at least nothing that will cause drastic changes in my current calendar.

Strike is this morning, so can't make it to the monthly gathering at St. E's. And no Thinplace tonight. Sometimes it feels like I gave up church for Lent. Took a little time this morning to read the Lectionary passages. We've got Moses and the burning bush, a warning lest we be struck down like the Israelites and Jesus saying, basically, not everything happens for a reason and we've got a year to bear fruit or else we'll be cut down. So glad I don't have to preach today. I may have to go searching for sermons today - would love to see what different people focused on. Makes me think of the Otherness of God - His holiness compared to us and how wholly different He is than us. Much easier when we feel we have a grasp on who He is, can understand why He does and allows some things to happen. It makes sense if people are punished for sins - we may not like it, but we get it. But for bad things, like the killing of the Galileans or the accident with the tower, to happen to people no different than us for no apparent reason - it makes no sense. There's always the hope that once we're not stuck in the middle of this thing called Life, we'll have perspective and be able to make sense of it all. But maybe not. Maybe we'll never make sense of it. Maybe we'll reach a point where we simply don't care anymore because it's not important.

Like I said, glad I'm not preaching today.

Abrupt change of topic: got my taxes back from my friend Gary yesterday. Was very excited when I saw my federal and state returns - more than enough to get a decent flat-screen TV if I so desire (and I do, oh I do). But then I looked at my city tax and it said I owed nearly half of my federal return. At first I was furious - leave it to Norwood to find a way to screw me. But as I looked at it closer, it seemed there had been some confusion - the form filled out was for Northwood, Ohio not Norwood. So what I'm hoping is the total was off and I'll only end up owing Norwood my usual amount, which is still annoying, but better than almost five times my usual amount.

OK, time to get ready to head down for strike. A little more prep time today with the shaving of the 'stache. Going to be awfully breezy. Been a while since I've been barefaced though I don't anticipate it lasting too long. Maybe not even a week. Faretheewell. Æ

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